Hoak Media Corporation was a broadcast media company based in
Dallas, Texas
Dallas () is the third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 million people. It is the largest city in and seat of Dallas County w ...
. Hoak once owned eighteen television stations (including satellites), all in medium and small-markets, mostly in the Great Plains states and Colorado. Hoak Media was established in August 2003.
On November 20, 2013,
Gray Television
Gray Television, Inc. is an American publicly traded television broadcasting company based in Atlanta, Georgia. Founded in 1946 by James Harrison Gray as Gray Communications Systems, the company owns or operates 180 stations across the United St ...
announced that it would purchase Hoak Media and Parker Broadcasting, excluding KREX (and its satellites), KFQX and WMBB (which could not be sold to Gray as it already owned stations in the markets affected), and as well as
KAUZ-TV
KAUZ-TV (channel 6) is a television station licensed to Wichita Falls, Texas, United States, serving the western Texoma area as an affiliate of CBS and The CW Plus. It is owned by American Spirit Media, which maintains a shared services agree ...
. Some of Hoak's stations were originally going to be sold to Excalibur Broadcasting and they would have been operated by Gray under
local marketing agreement
In North American broadcasting, a local marketing agreement (LMA), or local management agreement, is a contract in which one company agrees to operate a radio or television station owned by another party. In essence, it is a sort of lease or tim ...
s.
On December 19, it was announced that KREX and WMBB would be sold to
Nexstar Broadcasting Group
Nexstar Media Group, Inc. is an American publicly traded media company with headquarter offices in Irving, Texas; Midtown Manhattan; and Chicago, Illinois. The company is the largest television station owner in the United States, owning 197 te ...
, while KFQX would be sold to
Mission Broadcasting
Mission Broadcasting, Inc. is a television station group that owns 20 television stations in 17 markets in the United States. The group's Chair is Nancie Smith, the widow of David S. Smith, who founded the company in 1996 and died in 2011. All but ...
.
The sale was completed on June 13, 2014. However, some stations were forced to go off the air and their programming was moved to subchannels of Gray-owned stations (and in
Hastings, Nebraska
Hastings is a List of cities in Nebraska, city and the county seat of Adams County, Nebraska, Adams County, Nebraska, United States. The population was 25,152 at the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census. It is known as the town where Kool-Aid ...
, from
KHAS-TV to
KSNB-TV
KSNB-TV (channel 4) is a television station licensed to York, Nebraska, United States, serving southeastern and central Nebraska as an affiliate of NBC. It is owned by Gray Television alongside Lincoln-licensed CBS affiliate KOLN, channel 10 ( ...
with KSNB-TV's existing programming moving to a subchannel), due to some stations unable to receive regulatory approval after the
FCC
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains jurisdiction ...
's then-recent ruling on
joint sales agreements. Those silent stations were later sold off to minority interests.
On August 10, 2015, Hoak announced it would sell its last remaining station,
KAUZ-TV
KAUZ-TV (channel 6) is a television station licensed to Wichita Falls, Texas, United States, serving the western Texoma area as an affiliate of CBS and The CW Plus. It is owned by American Spirit Media, which maintains a shared services agree ...
(which was not included in the sale of most of Hoak's other stations to Gray Television, and of which was originally going to be sold to KAUZ Media, Inc.), to
American Spirit Media
American Spirit Media, LLC is a broadcasting company based in Charlotte, North Carolina. Founded by Thomas B. Henson in 2003 as Ottumwa Media Holdings, it owns television stations in several cities in the Southeastern United States.
History
In 2 ...
(a
Charlotte, North Carolina
Charlotte ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Located in the Piedmont region, it is the county seat of Mecklenburg County. The population was 874,579 at the 2020 census, making Charlotte the 16th-most populo ...
-based company headed by Thomas B. Henson) and would be operated under a
shared services agreement
In North American broadcasting, a local marketing agreement (LMA), or local management agreement, is a contract in which one company agrees to operate a radio or television station owned by another party. In essence, it is a sort of lease or time ...
by
Raycom Media
Raycom Media, Inc. was an American television broadcasting company based in Montgomery, Alabama. Raycom owned and/or provided services for 65 television stations and two radio stations across 44 markets in 20 states. Raycom, through its Commun ...
as a result of that company's acquisition of
Drewry Communications
The Drewry Communications Group was a media company based in Lawton, Oklahoma, wholly owned and operated by the Drewry family. The company was run by Robert Drewry (as the company's president), Bill Drewry (as its chief executive officer), an ...
(which had operated KAUZ-TV under a
joint sales agreement
In North American broadcasting, a local marketing agreement (LMA), or local management agreement, is a contract in which one company agrees to operate a radio or television station owned by another party. In essence, it is a sort of lease or time ...
since 2009). The sale was completed on December 1, completing the disestablishment of Hoak.
List of stations formerly owned by Hoak
Stations are arranged alphabetically by state and by
city of license
In American, Canadian, and Mexican broadcasting, a city of license or community of license is the community that a radio station or television station is officially licensed to serve by that country's broadcast regulator.
In North American broa ...
.
Carriage with Dish Network
On June 5, 2012, all of Hoak's stations were pulled from
Dish Network
DISH Network Corporation (DISH, an acronym for DIgital Sky Highway) is an American television provider and the owner of the direct-broadcast satellite provider Dish, commonly known as Dish Network, and the over-the-top IPTV service, Sling TV. A ...
after they failed to renew a carriage agreement. The refusal to renew reportedly surrounds Dish Network's "Hopper"
digital video recorder
A digital video recorder (DVR) is an electronic device that records video in a digital format to a disk drive, USB flash drive, SD memory card, SSD or other local or networked mass storage device. The term includes set-top boxes with direct to d ...
and its controversial commercial-skipping feature ''AutoHop''which has also led to complaints from the major U.S. television networks. Dish Network's senior vice president of programming scolded the company for its decision to pull its channels from the service, believing that their decision disrespects "customer control" over programming.
Notes
References
{{Gray TV, state=collapsed
Defunct broadcasting companies of the United States
American companies established in 2003
Mass media companies disestablished in 2015
Companies based in Dallas
2015 disestablishments in Texas
2014 mergers and acquisitions
2015 mergers and acquisitions
Defunct companies based in Texas
Gray Television